I was unable to practice last Thursday due to severe weather conditions. James Watt College closed early so I have arranged for practice to continue next week as usual and I will be getting my second singer in Jennifer McLardy.

Last night at my practice in James Watt College I had my first singer Emma Sunman attend and backing vocalist Stephanie Strachan. The songs that Emma is singing are "Hella Good", "Underneath It All", "Dark Blue" and "Sunday Morning". We began with "Underneath It All" as we hadn't had a chance to play this last week due to Nick being unwell. The song was a great success, after going through it a few times we felt we had it sounding very good and had no trouble with it. There is a section of the song where a rap is performed and due to none of the singers wanting to perform this rap Scott filled out the section with an improvisation which sounded great (as shown in the attached video).

Nick was able to find the real sequencer track for "Hella Good", the one that is actually used in the song. We played along to it last night a few times however the track needs to have a click added so that I am able to stay in time with it as last night there is a few times it fell apart because I had no timing reference.

"Dark Blue" was sounding great last night. Unfortunately Emma hadn't learned the song properly and she was unsure of how to sing some of it. The more we played it, the better it was sounding as she was gradually picking it up. I have asked her to definitely learn it correctly for next time. Musically the band have got it perfectly. It sounds really great and full.

"Sunday Morning" was also sounding fantastic musically, the band have mastered it. Again, Emma was unsure of some parts and I had to get at her again to learn the songs for next time. I have warned her that if she is not going to learn the songs correctly I will find another singer who is more reliable to perform her songs.

The band played brilliantly last night, I don't think anyone drastically messed up or was unsure of what they were doing. I can honestly say I have an incredible band and they are extremely professional musicians. My backing vocalist Stephanie was also very prepared and professional. She had thoroughly learned the songs and performed them very well. Emma was not as prepared as she had not fully learned a couple of the songs. I will give her another chance of course and try and help her if she is having any trouble with them.

I was speaking with my trumpet player Lizy last night and she informed me that she has found the number of the trombone player she knows and she is going to contact him for me at some point today and ask him if he would be interested in doing my project. John has also put his saxophone in for repair today so I am hoping to have my brass section in very soon.

Attached is a video of "Underneath It All" from rehearsal last night, I was unable to record more due to my phone battery running out. I will ensure next time that I have fully charged my phone so I can take videos of other songs and upload them.

Adam's contact got in touch with me today. He called me and we spoke about my project and what I was looking for. He has asked me to text him Tuesday next week, as this is when he sees his orchestra, to give him gig details so he can pass these onto his students to see if anyone will be interested in playing trombone for my project.

I am also pleased to announce that I have been successful in finding a trumpet player willing to do my project. I posted an ad on Gumtree last night and earlier tonight I received a text from a girl called Lizy, whom I actually used to speak to online a few years back and she has agreed to come to rehearsals and play the gig. She also informed me she knows a trombone player and is going to contact this person for me.

I plan to bring in brass players in the next couple of weeks because John is waiting on his saxophone being repaired and I am still waiting to hear back from a couple of people about trombone players. This also gives Lizy plenty of time to learn the songs before she comes into rehearse with the band.

I have been phoning around asking as many people as possible tonight if they know any trumpet or trombone players as the two girls I was given numbers for cannot do the gig due to other circumstances. I have posted a wanted ad on Gumtree in the Glasgow area so I am hoping to get some replies. I also joined a group on Facebook called "Musicians in Glasgow" and posted a comment regarding my need for brass players. I noticed on the page there is a couple of trumpet players listed so I have messaged them both and one of the girls has replied and said she may be able to help. I have sent her the songs that she would be playing on. She has informed me that she mainly reads music so I will have to get Scott to write out the part for me as he is very good at reading and writing notation.

I emailed my old lecturer from James Watt, Neil Weir, just to ask if he would help me out however I think he will be too busy to do it. I also spoke with fellow classmate Amy as she had contact with brass players however she does not have their numbers anymore.

My guitarist Adam has sent me the number of a man who plays brass, a friend of his friend, so I have also tried to contact him. I couldn't get him tonight so I have left him a message and I hope to hear back from him tomorrow.

The 4th week of practice at James Watt College went underway last night. However, Nick was unable to make it as he has a viral infection. This was very unfortunate as these songs are difficult to rehearse without a bass player as the bass is very dominant in the songs. We were unable to practice the new songs because of this so we worked on the sequencer for "Hella Good". Scott programmed a basic sequence track and we worked together on figuring out how to set it up and programme it to Pro Tools and send it to me via headphones so that I am the only person who hears it and it does not come through the PA. We were successful in doing this task and Scott plans to perfect the sequence in the next couple of weeks as he needs some time to go through the song and programme all of the different sounds.

We played through the song "New" and it was very straight forward, the only problem again was Nick being absent. As this is my function band I am using, we have a practice on Tuesday at a rehearsal room in Glasgow and we have decided to take a small amount of time to go over the songs we had planned to for this week as Nick will hopefully be there.

I visited Nice n Sleazys last night to check out the venue and I found it to have a good sized stage and I believe that it is definitely large enough for my 9 piece band. I have tried to phone the lady Caroline with whom I have been e-mailing about the gig to book it officially as she has only put it on hold for me at the moment. I will continue to try calling her over the weekend and I have also e-mailed her saying I would like to go ahead and book it.

I am still waiting to hear about brass. Scott has given me the number of a female trumpet player he knows and I will call her as soon as I have booked the gig as she is waiting to have confirmation of what night the gig will be on, I do not want to call her until I have definitely booked the gig in case it were to change. My guitarist Adam has also been in contacted with a trumpet player who may be interested and he is going to try and get me her number tonight. I have also contacted Greenock Academy inquiring about trombone players as a student I teach informed me that her school had trombone players and a trombone teacher. I left my details with him yesterday and he has informed that he will ask a few ex-pupils if they are interested and get back to me within a few days.

Over the past week I have trying to book a venue for my gig. I have looked into gig venues in Glasgow City Centre because myself, Alistair Duncan, Andrew Abercrombie and Steven Croft are planning on doing all of our gigs on the same night and we agreed on a venue in the city centre as this is easily accessible for everyone. I have looked into such venues as Rockers, Nice n Sleazys, Cathouse, Classic Grand etc. I have contacted these venues and found out all the details I need including prices, equipment, size etc.

The main problem I am finding now is that the majority of these venues are too small to host the 10-11 piece I am going to have for my performance. One of my singers, Jennifer McLardy, is an events coordinator and I have asked her for her help to find me a suitable venue. She called me last night informing me that she has got into contact with King Tut's and is awaiting reply and also advised me that I may be best hiring a hall so I am also going to look into this solution.

I have contacted a lecturer at James Watt College, Steph Greer to see if he can advise anywhere that would be suitable and within our budget because he has many contacts within the industry especially the Glasgow area and he has hired out the likes of Oran Mor before for our class last year.

I have drawn up a list of my set up required for my performance and I plan to hire out any additional equipment I need from the college. I spoke with Ronnie on Tuesday at my drum lesson about getting hold of a timbale drum. He informed me that there may be one within the college, I will e-mail and remind him of this nearer the time of my next drum lesson to see if I will be able to hire this out for my gig.

I spoke my my old drum lecturer at James Watt College last week and informed him I am looking for another backing singer. I already have one, Stephanie Strachan from James Watt who I met a couple of weeks ago at a recording session in the college. She was doing backing vocals for another Perth student, Charlene Gordon, and I thought she was very good and very professional. I got her number and asked her if she would like to do backing vocals for my gig and she agreed. I have been keeping in contact with her regularly and given her the songs she will be singing on. I hope to get another backing vocalist however if this is not possible I am going to ask my bass player Nick if he would contribute to the backing vocals as he also very good at this and he does backing vocals in our function band.

Last week at practice we decided that "Hella Good" will need a sequence track behind it as there is too much going on within the song for us to compensate, there is not enough of us to fill it out. Scott my keyboard player has been working on making one with his keyboard. On the night he will direct a click track directly to me through headphones so that the audience will not hear this, they will only hear the backing track. He informed me last night that he was making the track and it was going well. Unfortunately for me, he called me today and informed me that his keyboard does not save sequence tracks and that when he turned his keyboard off the track deleted so we are not going to be able to practice this song today. The solution for this now is to make the track again and save it to a memory stick. This will be completed for next week's practice.

I feel my project is going well so far, the band are very professional and have been making my songs sound very good. I hope to have a venue booked very soon. If I cannot get a larger size venue, I will look into cutting my band down slightly so that we can fit comfortably in Nice n Sleazys, for instance just having one extra backing singer and have Nick do backing and perhaps leaving the trombone player so that there is less people on stage.